(Just Like) Starting Over

It's back to "Gerhard" for Mr. Bush — after a year of icy silence during which the U.S. President refused to lay eyes on German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder. The feud was not just over policy; it was personal. Last fall, Schröder saved his sinking campaign by raising the sluice gates of anti-Americanism in Germany, while his Minister of Justice compared Bush to Hitler. The Bushies repaid the compliment by dumping Berlin in the junkyard of "Old Europe," putting out the word: "Talk to the Russians, punish the French, ignore the Germans."

But at the U.N. General Assembly last...